MONTGOMERY, AL(APR - Alabama Public Radio
) -
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals has upheld the capital murder conviction and death sentence of Mohammad Sharifi. He was convicted for the December 1999 slayings of his wife and an acquaintance in Huntsville.

Sharifi is a citizen of Iran. He had argued in his appeal that his conviction should be overturned because Huntsville police violated the Vienna Convention by not allowing him to contact Iranian government officials after his arrest.

The appellate court dismissed that argument. The judges said there was nothing in the Vienna Convention that calls for voiding criminal indictments.

The 41-year-old Sharifi was convicted in 2005 of capital murder and received a death sentence for the shooting deaths of his wife, 47-year-old Sarah Kaye Smith Sharifi, and 47-year-old Derrick Rick Brown, both of Huntsville.